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A Memorial Address 

By 

Herrick Johnson, D. D. 



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A MEMORIAL ADDRESS 

By 
HERRICK JOHNSON, D.D 



HAMILTON COLLEGE CHAPEL 
November ig, igoj 




CLINTON, NEW YORK 
1903 






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Born in Berlin, Conn., March 9, 1820. 

United with the Second Congregational Church at 

Berlin, December 4, 183 1. 

Graduated from Hamilton College in 1841. 

Principal of the Clinton Grammar School in 1842. 

Elected Dexter Professor of Greek and Latin in 

Hamilton College in 1843. 

Received the Degree of A. M. from Brown University 

IN I844. 

Married July 31, 1844, Mary Frances Dexter of 

Whitesboro, N. Y., who died May 27, 1869. 

Elected Necrologist of the Hamilton College Alumni 

in 1855. 

Elected Professor of the Greek Language and 

Literature in Hamilton College in 1862. 

President of the New York State Teachers' Association 

IN I865. 

Elected Elder in the Presbyterian Church at Clinton 

in 1865. 
Received the Degree of L.H.D. from the Regents of the 

University of the State of New York in 1869. 
Elected Commissioner of Auburn Theological Seminary 

in 1870. 

Elected Commissioner of the General Assembly of the 

Presbyterian Church from the Presbytery of Utica, 

in 1870, and 1876. 

Elected Secretary of the Epsilon Chapter 

of Phi Beta Kappa in 1870. 

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the University 

Convocation in 1874-5. 

Elected Trustee of Houghton Seminary in 188 1. 

Elected Trustee of Hamilton College in 188 i. 

Received the Degree of LL.D. from Madison University 

in 1887. 

Appointed Acting President of Hamilton College, 

April 20, 1891. 

Died on College Hill, September 13, 1903. 

Buried in Hamilton College Cemetery, 

September 16, 1903, 



At eighty years, what is life's dearest prize ? 

Not landscapes' shifting wealth of light and gloom, 

Not trees that whisper hints of Paradise, 

Not tender flowers that breathe delights" perfume, 

Not music's medicine for slander's gall, 

Not Attic lore with ageless wisdom fraught, 

Not travel's panoramic festival, 

Not letters sweet from far-off homesteads brought, 

Not history's crowded scenes of war and gore, 

Not drama's resurrected life and show; 

But hopes to meet dear lost ones gone before, 

With faith that Christ's own arm will strength bestow 

When earthly scenes fade from the mortal view 

And hopes of sinless, endless joys come true. 

— Edward North. 



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SOMETHING fine, unique and matchless dropped out of 
the life of Hamilton College, when Edward North 
dropped out of it. We are here at this memorial ser- 
vice to pay tribute to his memory. With what balances shall 
we weigh him, so that by comparison or contrast we may 
reach a just estimate of his worth? 

Weighed over against mere material endowment, as stone 
and mortar, or dollars and cents, sixty years of such a 
gift of God to the College as Edward North was, makes the 
biggest endowment Hamilton ever had seem " a trifle light 
as air." 

Weighed over against vast executive force, as in the mas- 
terly handling of affairs, the scales of a just balance soon 
tell that mere power of administration is no match whatever 
for the God-trusting spirit that let loose such intellectual and 
moral forces here on the Hill, and for more than half a cen- 
tury spent itself in the moulding and mastery of men. 

Drummond said some while ago that " love is the greatest 
thing in the world." But what is love without a lover? 
How can an attribute of personality be greater than the per- 
sonality. With "Old Greek" in the scales "love" would be 
outweighed by "love" plus a rare, unique, mystic person- 
ality, in which love was born, and out from which love was 
ever going on errands of beneficence. 

It was this power of personality that made Hamilton's 
Greek chair famous for half a century. And this is both the 
inspiration and the theme for this Memorial service. 

Power of personality may be somewhat difficult to define. 
But we all recognize it ; and when we come into the presence 
of it, we instinctively pay it homage. It was this in Mark 
Hopkins that Garfield glorified in his famous saying; " Presi- 

5 



dent Hopkins and a log to sit on, would be college enough for 
me." Personality cannot be copied — it must be developed. It 
cannot be manufactured — it must be grown. It is a composite 
— not any one quality, but a combination of qualities. There 
is both a perceptive and receptive element in personality. One 
needs to be open-eyed and minded, and must not only be able 
to see things, but be ready to take things in. Humboldt is 
reported as having said of a somewhat noted tourist that "he 
had traveled more and seen less, than any man he ever knew." 
This is the blunt way science has of telling the matter. Mrs. 
Browning says : 

"Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush a-fire with God, 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes, 
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." 

This is the poet's way of telling the matter. 

Alas, how many of us are before the bush, reading no sign 
of God there, content to go on plucking blackberries ! But this 
seer, whose memory we here honor — this man of visions, 
saw God in each burning bush, and off came his shoes ; for 
the place whereon he stood was holy ground. But not only 
must one see things and be ready to take them in, he must 
know them as they enter. Knowledge gives the intellectual 
element of personality. No personality worth speaking of is 
possible, where there is mental vacuity. 

And one needs to feel things — which is the emotional ele- 
ment of personality. And to do things — which is the voli- 
tional element. And to put conscience into things — which 
is the ethical element. 

This is the composite vital to high personality and the pro- 
portions in which these various elements get mixed will de- 
termine the charm, the glory, the power and the victories of 
this mystic thing which is so real, and which nevertheless 
baffles dissection and eludes all analysis. 

It is just because of this possibility of power in personality 
that the living teacher cannot be superceded. Books will not 
do the business. A living man before living men will forever- 
more be mightier than white paper and black ink. Hence it 



is that speech is the great instrument of power with man. 
Hence the Biblical statement: " Death and life are in the 
power of the tongue." 

Carlyle flamed out against this. He disparaged the tongue 
and lauded the press ; decried speech and glorified literature. 
His idea is, " Laws are not made by Parliament, but by the 
pen." The true university, he says, is a collection of books. 

But the world's great seats of learning go on establishing 
their lectureships, and chairs of instruction, and they com- 
pass the earth for living personalities with which to fill them, 
Carlyle to the contrary notwithstanding. 

A library has some unquestionable elements of inspiration. 
But the mind of an author is more than his works. The 
genius of a writer is greater than his writings. The nameless 
and potent charm of intense personality cannot all go down 
into a written word or a dead book. Soldiers, worth any- 
thing, will obey a written order of their chief, as it may be 
read along the lines ; but to see his face and hear his voice 
will lock their jaws with a firmer clench of duty and 
put into their fighting invincibleness ! Peter the Hermit, by 
his flaming speech fired all Europe with crusadic ardor. 
Luther's words, with Luther behind them, were thunderbolts. 
It was Gladstone's speeches permeated with Gladstone, that 
made him, for so long, primate of all England, and a world 
power. 

Truth is mighty. But Truth in personality is well-nigh al- 
mighty. 

How shall I set before you the rare personality that made 
such impress on the student life of Hamilton for sixty years, 
and left the track of its operation so ineffaceably and benefi- 
cently on upwards of two thousand of her alumni? 

Shall I do it by the briefest of biographies? Edward 
North was born in Berlin, Conn., March 9, 1820. He died 
at his house' on College Hill, Sept. 13, 1903. There it is — 
two dates and a life between. But of that life this brief 
record tells us absolutely nothing save that it was just so 
long. And this does not touch the hem of the garment of 
Personality. 



Let us then multiply the data. 

He united with the church in 183 1, when he was eleven 
years old. He began his preparation for college in his native 
town and finished it at the Grammar School in Clinton, in 
1837. He was graduated at Hamilton with the rank of val- 
edictorian in 1 84 1. In 1843, when he was less than 24 years 
of age, and only two years out of college, he was elected Dexter 
professor of Greek and Latin in Hamilton College. In 1862 his 
chair was divided and he was elected Professor of the Greek Lan- 
guage and Literature, which he held for the balance of his 
life. In 1844 he received the degree of A.M., from Brown 
University. In 1869 the honorary degree of Doctor of Liter- 
ature was conferred upon him by the University of the State 
of New York, and in 1887 the degree of Doctor of Laws was 
given him by Madison (now Colgate) University. Since 1852 
until his death, Professor North was one of the Trustees of 
the Clinton Grammar school; since 1855, a trustee of the 
Clinton Cemetery Association and Necrologist of the Society 
of Hamilton Alumni. He had charge of the department of 
Alumniana in the Hamilton Literary Magazine from its 
foundation in 1866. In 1865 he was president of the New 
York State Teachers' Association. He was a member of the 
New York Historical Society, the Albany Institute, the 
Oneida Historical Society, the American Philological Associa- 
tion, the American Philosophical Society, the Hellenic Philo- 
logical Sullogou, of Constantinople, and other similar associa- 
tions. He was known as the author of contributions to dif- 
ferent Reviews and Magazines, and of published addresses be- 
fore various societies, thus giving him an established reputa- 
tion as an accomplished essayist and critic. 

But with all this, and more that might be named, we are 
not let into the secret of this quiet but mighty life. These 
are mere biographical data, honorable indeed, and betoken- 
ing public confidence, varied activities, and trusts well dis- 
charged. But his mystic personality is not in these. They 
do not tell us one word of the weird witchery and strange 
spell by which he captured and charmed both the scholarly 
and the dull, proving a creative and uplifting force that lured 

8 



or inspired to higher things almost every student ever under 
his care. We must go deeper than dates and degrees, 
deeper than the calendar and the catalogue, to find the real 
man. 

We shall find something of Edward North's unique power 
of personality in his style of expression. 

Buffon goes so far as to say, "the style is the man." Cer- 
tainly language is more than the dress of thought. It is the 
living and organic body of which thought is the possessing 
and vivifying spirit. Just as no eye flashes and no face 
glows, so no words burn, where there is no fire within. In 
this sense North's style was North's soul. The rare quaint- 
ness of the spirit got expression in rich and sparkling quaint- 
ness of speech. The poetic soul found poetic utterance. 
This imparted the flavor of the original to his translations, 
and gave him the exquisite poetical and musical English in 
which he so deftly and smoothly rendered the musical Greek. 
This furnished him the happy choice and collocation, and 
sometimes coinage, of words that lent most felicitous expres- 
sion to his thought. 

Two years ago hundreds of his old students joined in send- 
ing him a bushel of letters as a Christmas greeting. It has 
since been my privilege to look over some of these letters of 
love and congratulation. And this is the way they speak of 
his style: One of the boys calls him "the most consummate 
master of the English language." Another embodies his 
thought of him in a quotation from the Iliad : 

" Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skilled; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled." 

Another speaks of " the beautiful rhythmical flow of those 
wonderful lectures we delighted so much to hear." 

Here is his own happy, prophetic and poetic characterizing 
of Commencement week as he stood fifty years ago, and 
prophesied what it would be a century thence: "Commence- 
ment week," he said, "will be a sumptuous carnival of schol- 
ars, rivaling the brilliant Panathenaea of the Greeks, at which 
wit, beauty, science, eloquence and song shall jewel the feet 
of the Hours, as they trip smilingly by." 

9 



And here is his apt and epigramatic way of contrasting two 
friends, to each of whom has been sent a basket of flowers. 
The one he describes born "with the poet's vision, and facul- 
ty divine;" the other "with the gifts of a lexicographer." 
The one deals with flowers tenderly, and " inhales their sweet- 
ness with sobs of delight." The other spreads them out as if 
on a dissecting table for scientific study ; or " proceeds to inspect 
them as a provost marshal might inspect a squad of raw re- 
cruits." "Both are passionately fond of flowers. Both are 
heartily grateful for the kindness that brings them. Yet they are 
decidedly unlike each other — almost as unlike as a black-bird 
and a black-board — or a bobolink and a bob-sled." This 
happy knack of nicking things — this quaint originality of 
style, surely lets us see something of the quaint original. 

His mystic power of personality also shows itself in his 
youthfulness of spirit. He kept it to the last. Age did not 
stiffen his soul or fix him in changeless ruts of procedure. 
He was as genial, willowy, and responsive to approach at 
eighty as at forty. He early became a child of God, and 
through all his subsequent manly and mature years, he took 
God by the hand as a little child, and trustfully walked with 
him all the way home. This childlike spirit that he carried 
up into old age, accounts, in large part at least, for the many 
classes of lovers he had. Not only the alumni loved him ; 
not only the boys in the College, but every one who served 
the household, loved him. Even the women who came oc- 
casionally to clean and wash, treasure the cute little speeches 
he made to them on occasions, showing appreciation of their 
work, and lightening their toil. The people he met at sum- 
mer resorts got tied to him — even children and the babies. 
The babies would always go to him and he would walk with 
them up and down the long hall of " Halfwayup," as if he 
were brooding over them in a kind of loving paternity. 

Here is what some of the Hamilton boys said of him in 
that rare budget of letters they sent him two Christmases ago. 

One of the boys of '85 writes: " I know the eternal youth 
of your heart." And one of the class of '68 says : " I remem- 
ber how you played with my first-born child, long since gone 

10 



to her eternal home." There he is, how easily we can picture 
him, on a chance visit in a Hamilton graduate's home, at his 
old tricks, playing the boy again in the dear caress and ten- 
derness of a spirit that could never grow old. A '75 enthus- 
iast puts it this way : 

"Old with wisdom in your youth; 
Young with lovers in your age; 
Always old and always young; 
•Old Greek ' to all since '41." 

And a member of the class of '71 pays touching tribute to 
this same sweet grace in these words: "You showed me that 
an accomplished scholar may be as simple, trusting and ap- 
proachable as a child." 

Approachableness ! Childlikeness ! Carrying this up into 
manhood, and on to old age, has been defined as genius. It 
marks certain great natures — pre-eminently, the Man of 
Nazareth ; never hedged about with dignities ; never behind 
locked doors; never in private quarters, with "no admit- 
tance " glaring at you over the entrance way. Greatly like 
him, reverently be it said, was the beloved Abraham Lincoln. 
It was this that so endeared the martyred hero to the popular 
heart. And Edward North's personality had one of its 
sweetest phases in this, the approachableness it invited and 
furnished. 

Closely allied to this trait was another — his rare gentle- 
ness. It made him great. It made others great who came 
under the spell of it. Morley, in his just-published life of 
Gladstone, quotes an English sage as saying, " He is a won- 
derful man that can thread a needle when he is at cudgels in 
a crowd ; and yet this is as easy as to find Truth in the hurry 
of disputation." Even Gladstone was not always ready to 
admit this. But it had no difficulty of acceptance with our 
quiet and studious lover of books and men. He got no truth 
by warring words. Disputation was alien to him. Taking 
up the cudgels of controversy was never a joy. No one had 
more tenacious hold of principle. He would die for it. But 
a fight he abhorred. He fled the arena of hot discussion and 
acrid debate. And yet, while he never domineered men, 



he dominated them. He won his throne ; he did not force it. 
Nay, he never seemed to make any effort even to win affec- 
tion. He simply was himself, and the throne came to him. 

He was an iconoclast ; but not of the rude, fierce sort, that 
smash our idols to our faces. We all remember the college 
days, when the college spirit and the college ambitions and 
rivalries and predilections, led to the setting up of idols. The 
sophomores were quite prone to personify the class, and to 
glorify the personification. A junior here and there would 
build an altar to logic. In my own day several of us, (and I 
was among them,) set up the idol Metaphysic, and paid it a 
good deal of homage. We muddled our brains with it, and 
set our tongues going, the result being what Spurgeon charac- 
terizes as " unbounded nothing in big words." Then along 
would come the dear old tender iconoclast, the Greek profes- 
sor, and like Emerson as described by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
he would "take our idols down from their pedestals so gently 
that it seemed like an act of worship." But they came down ; 
and they were never set up again. 

Here is the way some of his old students wrote of his gen- 
tleness as they crowned him on that Christmas coronation day 
a little while before he went home to God, to be crowned by 
the King of Kings : "One of the sweet inspirations of my 
life," says a member of the class of '86, " is the memory of a 
gentle, gracious, grand old man, whose kindly word at an op- 
portune time co-operated with other influences in leading me 
into the blessed ministry of Jesus Christ." 

"Your gentleness," writes another, of the class of '75, 
"your gentleness and kindliness and evident faith that there 
was something good in me, kept me from going straight to 
the devil. If I knew where upon this earth I could find a 
like influence for my boy, I should feel that he would be 
safe." What a crown to go to heaven with! Imagine the 
dear " Old Greek " going up to his Lord with that tribute 
shining in letters of light from his brow. We all know he 
would be ignorant of the shining, and would rather be saying, 
"Not worthy, Lord, to gather up the crumbs that from thy 
table fall." 

12 



Another characteristic of this rare personality was a ca- 
pacity for details. It is almost never associated with a 
poetic temperament. But this strange marriage took place 
in Edward North's nature, and the nuptials had God's own 
seal. He could sing and soar; but he could go on foot. He 
could sweep the heavens, yet harness his will to the minutest 
tasks. He was both telescopic and microscopic. Witness his 
Alumniana. Many of the old graduates found in these per- 
sonal details their chief joy, as they turned the pages of the 
Hamilton Literary Magazine. How this dear alumni lover 
kept on the track of the boys! Nothing seemed to es- 
cape his sight and search. He knew them as no other man 
on the Hill knew them. He could talk about them as no other 
man on the Hill could talk about them. When he met them 
he surprised them with his memory of details. And when they 
died, who could sum up the life record as he, making him the 
incomparable Necrologist, who has kept the annals of Hamil- 
ton's stelligerent host for well nigh half a century ! 

The old English poet, John Donne, (perhaps as striking an 
original as our Edward North), once likened a married 
couple to a pair of compasses, or dividers, after this unique 
fashion : 

"The one doth in the center sit, 

And when the other far doth roam, 
It leans and hearkens after it, 
And grows erect as it comes home." 

By a slight change or two in this quaint quatrain we have a 
happy picture of our beloved professor, and the way he used 
to keep in touch with the graduates of Hamilton: 
" Old Greek ' did in the center sit, 

And when his boys afar would roam, 

He leaned and hearkened after them, 

And grew erect as they came home. 

Is it any wonder that he knew the little details and incidents 

and happenings of so many of us, and that he had them 

handy when he met us by the way ! 

But it was not simply in his handling of the goings and 
doings of the alumni that he manifested his capacity for, and 
mastery of, details ; the minutest of the College interests were 

13 



in his mind and often on his heart. And other interests of 
every sort had his thought and care. I have been permitted 
to look into the record of a year of his life — a brief diary 
kept by his own hand. It is tracked with just those multi- 
plied minutiae of practical affairs that one would not have 
dreamed of, in this man of visions and this dreamer of dreams. 

Here is one day's record, copied at random from this com- 
monplace yet bewitching little book: " Greek at 9. Facul- 
ty meeting at 10. Greek with juniors at 11. In the ceme- 
tery with Mr. Hastings and Prof. Root at 12. Rev. James 
Dean and Dr. Beckwith at 1. Dr. Goertner at 2. In con- 
sultation with Dr. Brown at 3. Another appointment at 6. 
To Utica at 6:30. In Herald office until 9:30. Home at 
10:30. But ' no tired Nature's sweet restorer,' not a wink." 
That day's record, to the last droll word, is but a sample of 
the minuteness and variety and endless detail of his daily toil, 
and a sample also of how he could pull himself out of a state 
of utter weariness into a bit of characteristic pleasantry. We 
who knew how frail he was and how soon he tired, will not 
wonder, but will be touched to tears, at the silent confession 
wrung from him for his mute diary, but known only to himself 
and to God. Here are a few of these revealing records: 
"O the work that makes me another Sisyphus. The dogs of 
hurry and worry give me no rest, day nor night." " Hard day's 
work after sleepless night. Wrote no end of letters for stu- 
dents who want places for the summer. " And again : ' ' No good 
sleep last night to mend ' the raveled sleeve of care ' " ; " Day 
unto day bringeth weariness, and night unto night asketh, 
' How long, Lord?' ' Yet out from such weariness and sleept 
lessness he would come into open day with God and men as 
blithe and songful as a bird, with never a murmur on his lips 
or in his heart. In the inner circle that loved him most, " he 
would allow himself some periods of quietness and silence ; but 
of impatience, or fault-finding, or any unloveliness, there is not 
one memory ! " And this I have from the inner circle's very lips. 

And now I must not forbear a brief word as to the de- 
licious humor that blended with other things in the make-up 
of this unique personality. 

14 



It was not of the violent sort. It did not burst upon you 
as if all the flood-gates had been opened. It was moist, but 
genial and gentle, the play of fancy, the imagination in sport 
— delighting in the incongruous — and yielding a facetious, 
though subdued and almost etherial turn of thought. In- 
deed, nothing with him was with a roar. Even his laughter 
made no noise. It was quiet, but intense. It began in the 
merry twinkle of his eye, or in the smile that went chasing its 
way back to the ears, until the incongruous thing that caused 
it got such hold of him, that it fairly doubled him up, and 
shook him through and through. This was when the shaft of 
wit or splash of humor came from others. When it was his 
own, the effect only betrayed itself in the twinkle of his eye, 
or in that inexpressible, that inimitable smile with which he 
stood and looked you in the face His humor stole in on you 
in such a quiet way that you were scarcely aware how rich it 
was, until the moisture oozed and oozed from every pore of 
the droll, quaint speech. 

In the earlier days of Wellesley College, when it was a part 
of the duty of the students to do the housework, one of the 
girls was reprimanded for her carelessness in failing to dust 
the back legs of a table. Her sister, then at " Halfwayup," 
old Professor North about it. It s o amused him that he 
straightway sat down and wrote this note: " 'Halfwayup,' 

Nov. 4, 1879. My dear . When Phidias was asked 

why the figures on his pedimental sculptures were so carefully 
finished, even in parts wholly removed from the sight of visit- 
ors, he made that memorable reply, ' The gods see every- 
where.' Have they a stray goddess at Wellesley, who is 
equally hind-sighted?" 

When our class came to Greek recitation one day, we found 
upon the blackboard, and drawn by our class artist, Tinker, 
a remarkably striking and suggestive likeness of his never-to- 
be-forgotten face, done of course more or less in caricature. 
We waited breathlessly to see what would follow the chair's 
recognition of the fac-simile. He took his seat, looked at it 
over his spectacles, and said in his inimitable way, to the 
nearest student, "Will you please rub that out. One's 

*5 



enough!" And down came the class with a roar that shook 
the ceiling. Ah! well, one would have been enough, if we 
could always have kept it — the dear old, quaint original, the 
picturesque, classical, and homely, yet forever beautiful face, 
that beamed with kindliness and grew dearer and dearer to 
every student on the Hill who had the high privilege of look- 
ing into it any while. 

One more specimen of his humor must suffice. It is fur- 
nished by Hubbard, of the class of '50. The last of November, 
1848, it was announced in class that a stranger had arrived at 
" Halfwayup," in an alarming state of destitution. He was 
at once elected to class membership ; and an outfit of clothing, 
a copy of Agamemnon and a baby jumper were sent by the 
class to greet the new arrival. "Old Greek" found no class 
that morning, but went home with his bundle. The next 
morning at the class recitation, Professor North said, "I 
have been made the bearer of a communication to the junior 
class, which I leave upon the desk." The business committee 
faced the class, opened the letter and prepared to read. He 
turned pale, and exclaimed, "Bring the dictionary." Simon 
Newton Dexter North, the son of his father, and not then a 
week old, wrote Greek on that first day of December, 1848. 
The little tot expressed his thanks for the honor of an election 
to the class, but deeply regretted that the class so soon 
in his career should deem him worthy of — suspension ! 
Years later, when the young prodigy in Greek had failed to 
ake the coveted Greek prize, the father excused it to the com- 
mittee by saying, " Greek was forced upon him too early!" 

But I must not fail to mention at least one other character- 
istic through which Edward North's unique power of person- 
ality found expression — his contagious enthusiasm. He 
was an enthusiast, by the very law of his being and the 
very structure of his mind. He was buoyant, expectant, 
hopeful, and these are the boughs upon which enthusiasm 
grows. He had his moods of silence and sadness; the chariot 
wheels dragged heavily some days. There lurked somewhere 
in his nature a latent element of sternness. He had in him 
some of the stuff of which Puritans were made. But prevail- 

16 



ingly, his mind was on the splendid possibilities of tomorrow 
rather than on the tasks of yesterday. He knew it was 
"greatly wise to talk with our past hours;" but he made the 
talk a spur or awing; not a weight or an anchor. He cher- 
ished lofty ideals, and they led to lofty enthusiasms. He 
had a profound sense of the dignity and worth of things to which 
he put his hand, and they were so transformed under his magic 
touch, that the dumb idols— remaining dumb and answering 
nothing in other hands — were living oracles in his, and poured 
forth a doctrine, or a service, or a song, as sweet and beautiful 
as the dawn, " walking o'er the dew of a high eastern hill." 

Doubtless his chief enthusiasm was Greek. He was liter- 
ally iv $€o$, possessed by the God, as to the Greek language and 
literature. He himself said at the close of one of his lectures 
on the old Greek lexicon, that he "had lived so long on 
Greek, it would never be melted out of him or frozen out of 
him." No one who had not thumbed the old Greek lexicon 
over and over and through and through with the hand of his 
heart, could have fallen so dead in love with it. Hear this 
ardent lover tell of his passion in this high eulogy: "In com- 
ing years, when toil and disappointment and sorrow have fur- 
rowed the brow and pushed the golden bowl to the edge of 
its breaking, the old Greek lexicon will have its story to tell, 
when there is comfort in the telling, of youth's eager aspira- 
tions, sobered now by rough reality, of study's genial nurture 
and discipline, still adding something of sweetness and some- 
thing of beauty to the surroundings of life's monotonous 
drudgery. It will tell of castles in the Spain of a college day- 
dream, whose brilliant ruins have been framed into the solid 
structures of a workful, useful life. It will help to keep 
green the memory of unenvious rivalries that brought the re- 
wards of finish and enterprise to scholarship, of grace and nu- 
triment to thinking. It will help to perpetuate the rare 
blessing that lives in those hearty, breezy, unmercenary com- 
panionships of student days, with their tender backward 
glances and their eager onward Teachings, that search the soul 
as with June's quickening sunshine, for its hidden seeds of 
heroism, to bid them blossom into generous deeds." 

17 



And the enthusiasm that glowed and burned within him, 
that made out of an old Greek lexicon a memory, a poem, an 
heirloom, an inspiration and a castle builder — this same en- 
thusiasm he kindled in his students. He did not make them 
all linguistic experts, oleaginous Tenderers of Homer's verse, 
and consummate masters of the classic tongue ! No. Neither 
old Greek, nor young Greek, nor ancient Greek, nor modern 
Greek, nor even Greek god, could do that. But he did show 
to every man of them a beauty, a flavor, a richness, a glory in 
the old Greek poetry and tragedy and song, they had never 
dreamed of ; and in many of his students he lighted the very 
fires that burned in his own soul. 

One of the class of '63 sent this message in that mass of 
Christmas greetings the old students dumped into his lap at 
" Halfwayup " two years ago: "The glimpses you gave 
of the crowning glory of Greek architecture awakened in me a 
love for Greek literature, history and art, that has been a 
pleasure and a help all through life." 

And Hoyt of '75 blossomed into song on that same Christ- 
mas day, as he said to his old teacher : 

" Thou madest Greece a fair enchanted land, 
By simple virtue of thy scholar's wand." 

This poet student and his poet teacher have since joined 
in the hallelujahs of heaven ; and if our ears were strung to 
heavenly music, we might catch the notes of " the new song" 
they are singing. 

Another distinguished son of Hamilton, known to two con- 
tinents, testified in his Christmas greeting that not only his en- 
thusiasm for language and literature, but for a symmetrical 
and Christian life, were largely due to this beloved and schol- 
arly teacher of Greek. 

And another said, "It was Prof. North who retouched my 
ideals, taught me a new philosophy of the life of service, and 
cast a spell of stimulating and abiding influence over my life." 

Yet how unconscious this Great Heart seemed to be that 
those fires were lighted at his own altars. Listen to this un- 
affected child-like word I copy from the little diary, many a 
page of which is a window revealing the simplicity and mod- 

18 



esty of this cultured Christian scholar: " Lectured to fresh- 
men on the influence of Homer. Wonderful is the enthusi- 
asm of a new class." Wonderful it may have been to him. 
But wonderful to nobody else. With North as the lecturer 
and Homer as his theme, enthusiasm was as sure of birth as 
day is when the sun comes forth out of his chamber. Think 
of the glow and fervor of feeling that began with that first 
lecture to the freshmen, and grew and grew with both teacher 
and taught, until the last lecture to the juniors on " The Old 
Greek Lexicon," and you will realize what a world of pathos 
and tears this tenderly reminiscent and sympathetic soul 
crowded into these closing words of his last lecture to the 
class: " If it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back, 
it is the last lecture that breaks the teacher's heart." 

But he had other enthusiasms than Greek. The College — how 
he baptized it with his prayers and tears, how full he was with 
devices for its welfare, how jealous he was of its fair fame, 
how willing he was to spend and be spent in its behalf, though 
the more abundantly he loved it, the less he might be loved. 
I believe he could say to the innermost and to the uttermost : 
Sooner than forget thee, O Hamilton, my hand shall forget 
her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

Gardening was another of his enthusiasms. Nature, to 
him, had a heart. And he leaned tenderly to the soil, as if 
he would hear its great, silent throbbing. When he first took 
the side of the hill for his home, it was rough enough. He 
named it " Halfwayup." He put poetry into it. He flung 
his own sunshine all over it. He caressed it into pliant and 
gentle moods. He knew every flower and shrub and tree on 
the place, for his hand had planted every one of them. In 
tearing up a plant, one would think he felt he might hear a 
human protest from beneath, he did it so gently. 

Such, in part, was the composite of this rare, unique per- 
sonality which yet defies classification and flies analysis. You 
can't find a perfume in a botany book. Cataloguing virtues 
is not producing a man. But these enumerated characteristics 
may serve to help us see the nature, "whose gracious 
influence," says one of the class of '74, — "more than any 

19 



other single force, leavened the student body." "And 
who," says a graduate of '72, " impressed me so pro- 
foundly that every Hamilton graduate owed the world some 
unselfish work, for the betterment and uplifting of humanity." 

Thus we have seen how his personality found a voice. His 
verbal style marked a unique individuality. Even the splash- 
ing stroke of his pen was unlike any other that ever put a 
thought in words. We could tell it a rod away. His youth- 
fulness of spirit also gave his personality a voice. And so did 
his rare gentleness and his capacity for details, and his deli- 
cious humor, and his contagious enthusiasm. That he was 
rich and varied in his linguistic attainments and a consum- 
mate master of Greek, we all know. That he knew good 
company and how to keep it, his daily "walk with God" 
was a daily witness. 

He had the genius to be loved, the genius to be trusted, 
the genius to be listened to, — the blessed triad that must 
keep company in any life, to make it winsome, beautiful, 
commanding, and Christ-like. The basal thing in the genius 
to be loved is the heart element. The basal thing in the 
genius to be trusted is character. The basal thing in the 
genius to be listened to is brain. Each is a distinct advance 
upon the other, and a distinct addition to it. The heart ele- 
ment is at the core of things. Loveableness begets love. 
But there is something more than this in the genius to be 
trusted. The mother passionately loves her infant child. 
But the child must show character before the mother can put 
trust in the child. And it must grow both character and 
brain before it can win intellectual homage and command and 
keep admiration. The brain need not be of the cyclopean 
or of the myriad-minded order, with trip-hammer logic and 
unlimited power and sweep of thought. But it must be brain. 
The brainless surface-seer, whose voluble loquacity is never 
embarrassed by intellectual activity and who has a vast ca- 
pacity of saying nothing at great length, will not long get 
ears to listen to his talk. 

The beloved North got them and kept them. The genius 
to be loved and the genius to be trusted and the genius to be 



listened to, found their basal elements in his personality. 
And they so interpenetrated each other, so played into each 
other, and were so harmoniously blended, that he everywhere 
won both love and admiration. 

Some men command and get our heads, and harness us to 
endeavor by the mighty sway of their wills. But we never 
feel that we would like to pillow our heads on their bosoms. 

Some men command and get our hearts. But they never 
lift their heads like mountain peaks before our wide open, 
wondering and admiring eyes. 

Let a cultured classical scholar, an honored son of Hamil- 
ton, an authority in Biblical criticism, and who knows He- 
brew as our Edward North knew Greek, tell us how he looks 
at this matter. Here is the tribute he placed on the brow of 
the dear old octogenarian Professor, a little while before he 
dropped Greek for the language of heaven. It voices the 
feeling of a thousand alumni hearts: " Some men I admire 
whom I do not greatly love. Others I love, but do not greatly 
admire. But during the forty-seven years since I first had the 
good fortune to have you as my teacher, you have command- 
ed in a high degree both my love and my admiration." 

What a loveable original he was! And what an original 
loveable ! Twice already we have found him answering to 
accredited definitions of genius — "Genius is carrying the 
spirit of childhood up into manhood and old age." Edward 
North answered to that. " Genius is capacity for and mas- 
tery of details." Edward North answered to that, too. 

Now let us turn to another definition. Emerson tells us 
that a genius is ''a man whom God has sent into this world 
marked ' not transferable,' and 'good for this trip only.' " 

The old sage of Concord may have been looking in a mir- 
ror when he wrote that. Or, he may have been thinking of 
"Old Greek!' At all events, how it fits! The alumni as 
one man, say * ' We shall never see his like again. " It was writ- 
ten all over him, "Not transferable," and "Good for this 
trip only." 

" The boys come in and the men go forth, 
But there never will be but one Edward North, — "Old Greek!" 

21 



But though we shall never see his like again, we shall see 
him again, if we keep true, as he kept true, to truth, to con- 
science and to Christ. 

Early of a Sabbath morning, last September the thirteenth, 
the singing soul slipped the shell in which he had so long 
made music, and the shell was empty. No song sung through 
the vacant chambers. The singing soul had gone home to 
God. We call that day his dying day — the day of his death. 
But did he see death? Yes, but death transformed. No 
longer a skeleton with a flying dart', but an angel with a 
golden key. I know not how he went home — up what shin- 
ing way, or with what attending convoy of ministering spirits. 
But ever since I stood on the summit of Righi in Switzerland, 
amidst the splendors of an autumn sunset, and saw God fling a 
bridge of golden sheen from the horizon across intervening 
spaces and abysses to my very feet, I have loved to think, and 
there is nothing in Scripture to forbid the thinking, He might 
thus cast up a shining way of grace and glory for all his ran- 
somed children as he called them one by one to come up into 
His presence chamber. And if he ever did it for anyone, I 
think He did it for " Old Greek." 

I love also to think, and there is nothing in Scripture to 
forbid the thinking, that ministering spirits came out of 
heaven and down the shining way to meet the aged saint, 
already feeling the thrill and vigor of immortal youth as he 
neared the celestial city, and that in loving convoy they saw 
him through the gates. What if God let the Hamilton boys 
that had already died in the Lord, do that for Old Greek! 
Wouldn't it have been just like God ! And wouldn't the boys 
up there have been proud and glad ! 

Three days after that ascension day was the day of his 
burial ; September the sixteenth. Sadly, tenderly, lovingly, 
we took up the body and laid it away in the College cemetery 
to await with other precious dust of other beloved servants of 
God, the resurrection morning. Concerning this burial day 
we only need assure our hearts that in burying the body of 
our beloved North, he was not buried. No long unconscious 
sleep holds him in the tomb. When the emptied shell lay 

23 

L. 0/ l. 



there that Sabbath morning, he was already ' ' absent from 
the body " and ''at home with the Lord." But when the 
time shall come for the resurrection trump to sound, he shall 
have his body back again, changed by some mysterious al- 
chemy, from the old body of weakness and decrepitude to a 
body of glory and immortal youth. 

We have come now to another day — his coronation day ! 
Here we speak our loving memorial in honor of his worth and 
work. Here we lift invisible monolith, and carve upon it 
these coronation words. They come from the pen and the 
heart of one who for more than forty years has shared with 
me life's toils, and trials, and triumphs, and who from the 
very first has cherished for my old Greek teacher a high and 
warm regard : 

King Edward — first and only ; on these heights 

To-day we name him thus, our well-loved Greek. 

In other empires, kings may come and go 

In transient splendor, crown succeeding crown. 

This king, serene, benign, and laurel-wreathed 

With any Grecian hero of them all, 

Upon abiding throne in loving hearts 

Shall sit unfollowed and forever crowned ! 

Edward, our King. 

But another day is coming — -best day of all — God's great 
praising day. We shall all be there - — the stelligerent host of 
the sons of Hamilton that have loved and served their Lord. 
And then, when the Lord shall bring to light " the hidden 
things" that have been done in His name, and the heart's 
counsels that were full of loving devices for Christ's sake, and 
yet that got no trumpeting here — then shall each man have 
his praise from God ! What a great day that will be. What 
blessed surprises God will have for us. What deep abysmal 
joy we shall step into. And who among us all can have a 
possible doubt that 

"When the last great chapel rings, 
And all the College together brings, 
When the years and the centuries meet, 
Then shall we see in the very front seat, 
•Old Greek!'" 



23 



